Joseph McCarthy

Joseph Raymond McCarthy (14 November 1908-2 May 1957) was the United States Senator from Wisconsin from 3 January 1947 to 2 May 1957, succeeding Robert M. La Follette Jr. and preceding William Proxmire. McCarthy was infamous for his role in the Second Red Scare, during which he accused several American politicians and Hollywood directors and actors of being communist infiltrators. He was discredited after the Army-McCarthy Hearings and was censured by the Senate, dying in 1957.

Biography
Joseph McCarthy was born on 14 November 1908 in Grand Chute, Wisconsin, and he earned a law degree from Marquette University Law School. In 1942, he volunteered in the US Marine Corps during World War II and served as an air force intelligence officer during the Solomon Islands and Bougainville campaign in the Pacific War against Japan, and he was discharged in April 1945 with the rank of Captain. In 1946, he defeated Robert M. La Follette Jr. in a race for a senate seat to represent Wisconsin, and in February 1950 he began the Second Red Scare by claiming that he had a list of communists that had infiltrated the US government (it would turn out that there was no such list). In the early 1950s, he began "McCarthyism", a series of defamations, trials, and accusations against suspected communists, claiming that his enemies were communists, gays, or traitors and attempting to purge the government of all of his enemies. However, the suicide of his enemy Lester C. Hunt and the Army-McCarthy Hearings led to his fall from popularity, and on 2 December 1954 he was disciplined by the Senate by being censured, a rare example of the Senate using censure. He died in Bethesda, Maryland in 1957 of alcoholism, his reputation ruined.